


Sleeping on the Blacktop

by asexualshepard



Series: Devil's Backbone [1]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: ??? I GUESS, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Western, Angst, Gen, Gun Violence, Implied Sexual Content, Jack is scary, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, rhys has seen some shit and he's having a hard time working through it now, they don't do anything but they have before and that's referenced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 15:56:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11316711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualshepard/pseuds/asexualshepard
Summary: Rhys has thought about shooting Jack more than once.





	Sleeping on the Blacktop

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so, this is a really weird place to start writing with this AU. I have a whole arc planned out in my head, and this event places itself towards the beginning of the middle. A bit of an unconventional starting point, and I'm sorry if that makes it not make sense in some ways.
> 
> But, long story short, Rhys has been traveling with Jack for - probably a few months at this point. He used to run a saloon, Jack wandered into town one day, a lot of other stuff happened, and then he ended up blackmailing Rhys into leaving with him. I'd like to actually write out those events one day because there's a lot to them, but this is my first fic of a decent length in a year and a half, so I'm gonna just wait and see where I go.
> 
> For now, here's this! Enjoy!

Rhys has thought about shooting Jack more than once.

It’s a notion that’s come to him a handful of times, molded and stuck to various moments. He hasn’t, of course—not yet. But every so often, sometimes brought to light by something Jack had done, sometimes by the quiet loathing that slides between Rhys’ fingers, he desperately wants to. He wants to press the barrel of his revolver—the one currently sitting in his lap—to Jack’s temple while he sleeps. Maybe push it into Jack’s gut one day, out of the blue so he can see the shock of it in Jack’s eyes as his light flickers and finally goes out, wrinkling the V-shaped scar that mars his forehead.

At this moment, with his back pressed to the rock outcropping they’d made camp in for the night, Rhys is considering the first option. Across the slowly dying fire meant to keep the chill of the desert night from wrapping itself around them, Jack is lying in the dirt, arms folded across his broad chest, hat tipped over his eyes. Rhys won’t do it—for a handful of both logical and illogical reasons—but that doesn’t mean he can’t fantasize, plan and plot in case he does.

It would be so easy. Too easy—which is one of those aforementioned logical reasons. If Jack is actually asleep and not trying to play some kind of game, he’s relatively defenseless. His pack is at his feet, the only possession within reach being his revolver, still holstered and threatening to slip from the worn leather into the dry dirt beneath them. Easily dealt with. Rhys has learned how to be quiet; he could creep over and be done with Jack in a matter of seconds.

Rhys blinks and shifts his gaze, glancing out at the darkened desert, idly thumbing at the barrel of his revolver, popping the cylinder out and pushing it back in. He hefts the weight of the gun in his palm. The shape of it is familiar now, but there’s an implication that comes with it—practically carved into the wood—that makes him feel sick.

Jack had given the revolver to him. Picked it up from the dirt where it had fallen as Jack killed the highwayman who’d been carrying it, beating the corpse until it was nearly unrecognizable as human, face beaten in and limbs twisted. Excessive, brutal in a way that made Rhys’ stomach curl. Rhys can easily recall Jack’s eyes, wide and wild as he slammed the butt of his rifle into the man’s nose, cheekbones, jaw, over and over.

It wasn’t the first time Rhys had seen Jack kill someone—not even close; the man murdered more people than he cheated out of money—but it was the first time he’d seen Jack lose control.

That was the first time Rhys had thought of shooting him. When Jack rubbed one of his hands across his forehead, smearing blood and dirt across his scar, and picked up the corpse’s revolver to turn and push it into Rhys’ hand, eyes wild but reins mostly regained. It was that sudden, physical transition—so seamless Rhys had wondered if he’d actually seen Jack go off the deep end for a second—that made his fingers first itch around the gun in his hand, the gun he didn’t know how to use.

He could have done it, that day. They’d been less than half a day from the nearest town; Rhys easily could have shot Jack—still out of it, still wild and careless, though composed—and left him to bleed out and rot in the desert with nothing but the mutilated corpses of the highwaymen for company. He could have backtracked and found a train to take him home, back to his glasses and rowdy customers, back to his saloon.

When Rhys asks himself why he didn’t do it, he answers that it was because he’d just watched Jack outmaneuver and brutally kill four men, all larger than him. When he asks why he didn’t do it that night, once they’d settled down after Jack had taught him how to shoot properly, once Jack had put him up to the task of watch and settled in the dirt to sleep, he says it’s because he was still in shock at seeing a man’s brain spread out across the rocks, or that killing a man in his sleep was too low to sink. He still uses the latter, actually. If he needs to, he can always reach for the stump of his right shoulder and pretend to do math, conveniently working out that his chances of dispatching Jack with one arm are slim.

There’s always some kind of excuse. They help Rhys ignore that, in reality, Jack pulls at the strings of curiosity in his back until they’re taut. Jack _intrigues_ him. He’s a man in his forties with a bounty on his head large enough that he won’t tell Rhys the exact amount, a man who can kill four men larger and stronger than him without batting an eye. A man who crowds Rhys’ space. A man who flirts with and threatens Rhys all in the same breath.

Jack is terrifying, and Rhys wants to know everything about him—won’t kill him until he does.

He’s starting to think he’ll never get to.

“You’re staring pretty hard for someone who’s already seen me naked, kiddo.”

Rhys blinks. He’s not sure when his eyes made their way back to Jack, but it was long enough ago that, in his unfocused state, he missed Jack shifting, tipping his head to the side so the brim of his hat catches on his shoulder and reveals one of his eyes—the blue one, some stupid part of Rhys notes. It’s still shadowed, but the iris reflects the light of the fire, reminds Rhys of that day with the highwaymen.

Jack sniffs and shifts his shoulders against the dirt, brow lifting up to hide in his hat. “What’s goin’ on in that pretty little pea-brain of yours, sweetheart?”

Rhys swallows the anxiety crawling up his throat and considers lying. He also considers telling the truth.

In the end, he says nothing.

At the silence, Jack sneers and huffs obnoxiously, shifting to roll up onto his elbows so he can rise to his feet. It takes a few seconds—Rhys has taken into account that the gray streaks in Jack’s hair aren’t the only effects of his age—but he makes it eventually and reaches down to do a shitty job of patting the dirt from his clothes. Then, he rounds the fire, puts himself directly between the slowly dimming light and heat and Rhys’ thin frame.

_It would be so, so easy to push him into the embers_ , Rhys’ brain provides.

Jack isn’t particularly tall—Rhys has a few inches on him when they’re both standing—but, especially with his hands on his hips, he is broad. He strikes an imposing figure with his wide shoulders, strong jaw, large hands. Even with all the layers of heavy clothing stripped away, Rhys knows—has personally experienced—that Jack doesn’t need them to be the dominant person in the room, despite his stature.

Rhys swallows again and presses back into the sharper angles of the rocks against his back, trying to redirect himself from that confusing array of thoughts and memories. He busies his fingers with his revolver, presses on the cylinder until it pops out, listening to the quiet click that comes with it. At the sound, Jack’s eyes flicker downward, sharp, catching the way the nail of Rhys’ thumb scrapes against the metal warmed by the constant contact of his skin.

Jack’s gaze freezes on the cylinder, his brows twitch, and his eyes take on that same wild quality Rhys had seen the day he got the gun in his hand.

Rhys snaps the cylinder shut.

_He knows_.

Every bone in Rhys’ body is rattling, itching beneath his muscles, muttering those words in a hushed mantra. He sees it in the edge of Jack’s eyes, like the glass of broken bottles and one man standing over others after a late-night brawl. It’s in the clench of Jack’s jaw and the crescents being carved into the supple leather of Jack’s coat by his dirty fingernails.

Jack knows about Rhys’ little fantasy and, even if Rhys wouldn’t have, won’t, he’s going to end up just like the previous owner of the revolver that is steadily gaining more and more weight against his palm. Someone, years down the road, will find his sun-bleached skeleton, skull bashed inwards and limbs shattered.

Jack moves too quickly for Rhys’ panic to spur him into action. One second Jack is staring at him—at the gun—and the next he’s swooping down to snatch it from Rhys’ now sweaty, loose grip.

“S’not even fuckin’ loaded, you idiot,” Jack spits, scowling as he presses the cylinder out.

Something in Rhys breaks, shatters and melts down his ribs, gets lodged in his throat so the breath he releases into the cool desert air shudders audibly.

“The fuck were you gonna do if some coyotes snuck up on us, huh, genius? Or bandits? What about them?”

Rhys’ lungs feel three sizes too small. “I, uh…” he breathes. It rattles in his chest. “Sorry, I… must’ve forgotten to reload after I—after I cleaned it earlier. Wasn’t thinking.”

“No shit, dumbass,” Jack growls, focus shifted to the gun now in his hands as he absentmindedly reaches down to rip Rhys’ pack from where it’s wound over his arm. Rhys decompresses as Jack digs around inside of it, moving Rhys’ small amount of possessions into a mess, no doubt, before finding what he’s looking for—a small, nearly used-up box of bullets stolen from the same man as the revolver itself. When Jack drops the pack, he specifically makes sure it lands harshly against the side of Rhys’ knee, tipping to the side and spilling a few things, such as Rhys’ expensive jar of pomade, onto the ground.

Jack mutters, rambles, as he pushes a bullet into each of the cylinders. If any of it is directed towards Rhys specifically, he doesn’t process it, nor does he process his things spread out on the dirt around him. There’s a feint buzzing between his ears, a tightness between his ribs. He’s too focused on those things to bother listening to whatever it is Jack is saying.

He only regains Rhys’ attention when he drops the now loaded revolver back into Rhys’ lap, too sudden and too close to his dick for comfort. The last of his panic is replaced by this superficial one—the kind that disappears as soon as it arrives.

With a quiet yelp, Rhys scrambles, gets the gun in his hand again, and turns his chin upwards to meet Jack’s eyes. With his panic gone, substituted for irritation at the smirk on Jack’s lips, Rhys glares. It just makes the smug twist to Jack’s features heighten.

None of the wildness in his eyes remains—come and gone just as quickly as every time before.

With a snort, Jack kicks a bit of dirt up and onto Rhys’ crotch, flicks the brim of his hat to tip it back, and turns to move back over to where he’d been sleeping before. Rhys sneers and looks down to try and salvage his pants, pretending not to follow Jack’s every move.

It makes Rhys nervous—the purpose in each of Jack’s steps as he once more rounds the fire. It’s no different from his usual gait, not really, but, after moments where Rhys sees that lack of control in Jack’s eyes, it always feels as if it is. The stride that usually feels overconfident seems to fit instead. A controlled showcase of power.

Rhys watches apprehensively as Jack stops next to the spot on the ground near his pack and straightens his back, pausing a moment before shouldering out of his coat, revealing the broad back Rhys has been trying not to think about. Then, Jack turns to look at him as he balls the coat up in his hands, and Rhys quickly focuses on his pants, rubbing at the dirt that has started to settle into the fabric.

“Hey, kid,” Jack says, words stiff and demanding.

Rhys’ shoulders tighten and he glances up, gaze hooking momentarily on the harsh line of Jack’s mouth before nervously returning to his trousers. “Yeah?”

Jack sniffs, squints. “I ever catch you without bullets in that gun again…” he starts, voice low and hard, and out of the corner of his eye Rhys sees his shoulders pull up like the hackles of a wild dog.

The pause in his words stretches, intentional, and Rhys knows exactly what Jack wants. It’s not uncommon for Jack to stop talking and wait if he thinks someone isn’t paying attention. Still, no matter how often the tactic has been used on Rhys, he’s still reluctant when he moves to meet Jack’s eyes.

They look just as they did when he first pushed the revolver into Rhys’ hand.

Jack lifts his chin, squares his shoulders. “If I ever catch you without bullets in that gun again,” he repeats. “I’ll kill ya. Understand?”

Rhys’ grip tightens on the revolver.

“Y-Yeah... Yeah, I understand.”

This time, it’s Jack who breaks, hard glare shattering into a grin that drips with satisfaction and smarm.

“Glad to hear it, Rhysie, glad to hear it,” he says, brows angling, teeth sharp in the flickering light of the fire as he drops his balled-up coat to the dirt where his head had been a few minutes ago. “Now, you be a good boy and actually _don’t_ do a shit job of keeping daddy alive while he sleeps this time, ‘kay?”

Rhys briefly considers shooting him again.

“Wake you up in a few hours,” he says instead, hissed between his teeth. “Get some rest, Jack.”

Jack smirks while he drops back to the dirt, making sure Rhys can see how happy he is with himself. It takes him a few moments—a bit of shuffling, a few obnoxious noises—to get comfortable, and then he reaches up to once more tip his hat over his eyes, the gesture crisp and followed by a pleased sigh.

“Nighty-night, kitten.”

Rhys notes how much heavier the gun in his hand is when it’s loaded.

“Night, Jack.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @ [asexualshepard](http://asexualshepard.tumblr.com)
> 
> Any kudos or comments are greatly appreciated :D
> 
> And, most importantly, thank you for reading!


End file.
